One healthy eating habit is to have a healthy appetizer. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Maybe a cucumber, carrot, or some celery. I usually try to give my kids vegetables as appetizers because they won’t eat them unless they feel really hungry and know I won’t give them any other “yummier” snacks.
Last night I was frantically trying to pull something together for dinner.We were in need of a trip to the grocery store. Also in need of a plan for dinners this week.
The kids were hungry and fussy. I decided to pull out a good old box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. But I wanted to add something to it so they wouldn’t just get stuffed on enriched noodles and powdered cheese. So I went for a can of chili. I know, sodium, sodium, sodium! The thought started making me feel sick, so I searched for some kind of fresh vegetable they might eat, and found a perfect cucumber in the back of the fridge. 🙂
My son shrieked “not a zucchini!”. Â And I told him not to fear because this was a cucumber. Not a zucchini. Then I thought of Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales and decided our cucumber needed a face to make it a little more child-friendly.
It took less than a minute to carve a little face onto that cucumber. And then I chopped it in half and made another face on the other side so they could each have one. They thought it was pretty fun. They munched on their cucumbers while waiting for dinner to be ready.
It was a double win because  they were so hungry that they were actually willing to eat some of the cucumber. And it entertained them while I finished making up the dinner.
And everybody was happy.
The end.